Yeltsin Government Defies New Pressures

MOSCOW —  Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin’s government Thursday boldly declared its intent to forge ahead with painful pro-market reforms, defying pressure from an influential centrist bloc to compromise its programs in return for political support.

“We do not think it reasonable or possible to retreat from our principled strategic course of reforms for some political considerations or for reasons of expediency,” acting Prime Minister Yegor T. Gaidar told legislators.

In the stormy lead-up to the Tuesday meeting of the Congress of People’s Deputies, the country’s supreme legislative body, the centrist Civic Union political bloc had repeatedly demanded that key figures in the government be replaced and that Gaidar’s “shock-therapy” economic policy be revised.

Yeltsin’s decision earlier this week to dismiss two powerful appointees fueled speculation that he was ready to bow to Civic Union’s pressure to increase his political support before the congress meets.

But in a speech before the Supreme Soviet, Russia’s sitting legislature, Gaidar appeared to dash the chances of a strong alliance between the government and Civic Union as he outlined a program of urgent economic measures for the end of 1992 and the first quarter of 1993.

The decision not to adopt Civic Union’s program was potentially a risky political move because it could alienate a group of legislators whom Yeltsin may need on his side when he faces the congress; most of its members are conservative, former Communist Party members. The congress will decide whether to extend the extraordinary powers it gave Yeltsin earlier in the year to direct the country’s transition.

The Gaidar speech signaled that Yeltsin is ready to take a risk to preserve the direction and tempo of his government’s pro-market economic reforms.

Arkady Volsky, a Civic Union leader, told the Itar-Tass news agency that the program Gaidar outlined contained practically none of Civic Union’s proposals. He said the leaders of the alliance would meet over the weekend to decide their response.

Had the government adopted the Civic Union plan, it could have lost the support of liberal legislators, who form Yeltsin’s traditional political base, said Father Gleb Yakunin, a liberal legislator. “We supporters of the president and the Gaidar team are not satisfied anyway because the reforms are going too slowly,” Yakunin added.

Gaidar launched into his speech by denouncing the primary elements of the centrist alliance’s plan to stabilize the economy. “It would not be constructive and it is not justified to try to solve the acute economic problems of today by restoring the traditional models like directly regulating the distribution of resources,” he said.

He went on to reject Civic Union’s calls to freeze salaries and prices, set a more favorable exchange rate for the ruble, and to pump more money into the economy--which is already suffering rapid inflation.

Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Shokhin told journalists the government could not incorporate these points in its reform program: “If we introduced such points in our government program, I would be the first to resign, because it would be another government and another program.”

The main goals of the new anti-crisis program are to: slow the rate of decline of production, which has plunged dramatically; decrease the rate of inflation, which has soared in frightening fashion, and promote an economic upturn.